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The Things That People Regret the Most as They are About to Die

A recent article has prompted me to reflect on the very poignant topic of death. I once read a book called The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, by Sogyal Rinpoche, which changed my perspective entirely and helped me immensely when facilitating hundreds of people through their final moments of life. The book mentioned that the main difference between Eastern and Western cultures is that in the east people prepare for death all of their lives. In the west we do not even talk about death until it is on our doorstep. This leads to much pain, trauma and regret for many people as they are about to die….

Transcript of this video:

The Biggest Regrets of the Dying

Hello this is Adam Shaw, joining me from a very snowy, suburban, Verulamium park today and I’ve been quite contemplative today because recently I read an article that was quite popular written by a palliative care nurse talking about the things that people regret the most at the end of their life. And it’s funny reading this article and seeing how popular it was because this is a topic I’ve been talking about for years because I used to work as a nurse in medical settings, in surgical settings, in A&E. So I’ve worked with a lot of people at the end of their lives and resonate with this message. So I thought I’d share my tuppence worth on this subject.

And it’s true, so many people spend their whole lives looking to please other people, and this comes from a place where we’re running programs of not being worthy enough, and when we run those programs then we start to put other people’s happiness in front of our own, and this always comes back to haunt people at the end of their lives. So ask yourself now who’s happiness are you putting in front of your own, because one thing that I’ve realized is looking to please other people before pleasing yourself is futile at best and it’s very destructive at worst, and it’s a huge regret with people, and from this stems problems with family dynamics, because from my experience is any unresolved family stuff will always come back to haunt you.

So unless you’ve reached resolution with all of your family relationships, then that will be something that comes back to stare you in the face right at the end. Now of course you might die suddenly and that might not be an issue. You might not have time to reflect from your hospital bed about all this stuff. But who knows what lies beyond this life. Now another thing that always comes up for people at the end of their lives, they’ll question their entire purpose on this planet. What was your purpose, why were you here, what was the point of life? They’ll start to ask is there life after death? It becomes very poignant when people are lying on their death beds. What was the purpose of life? And so often people don’t ask that question until it’s too late. Now that’s something that everybody gets to ask themselves, what was the purpose of my life, what did it serve, did I make a difference, did I really matter, how many people’s lives did I impact.

If you haven’t started to consider any of these questions, I’m going to encourage you to at least plant the seed because this is something that will come back at you as you suddenly start to question your own mortality.

So on that slightly somber and very reflective blog, let’s lighten things up a little bit. Things could be worse. You could be on death’s door right now. But while you’ve got life in your system, you’ve got a chance to change it and to start questioning why you’re here on this planet, and whether you’re happy right now. Because if you’re not happy, then it’s not going to look good. And things aren’t going to get any better unless you start asking yourself the question what will make you happier right now. So by following your heart, by doing things that feel good, by pursuing happiness, and soon certainly stop looking to please other people before yourself then things could get markedly better very quickly.
So from me Adam Shaw, wishing you to be healthier, to be happier, and have some fun along the way.

If you have any comments, questions or sharings on this subject, I’d love to hear them

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My curiosity into human interaction was sparked at a very young age, when I witnessed the various behaviour of the residents of the psychiatric hospital I grew up in, many of whom wandered down to my family home, looking for cigarettes.